ArtKramr wrote:

The Sad tale of Private Eddie Slovik: Military Justice Denied.


No doubt influenced by "guardhouse lawyers" (other military prison inmates),
Slovik had apparently believed that he would not be executed but rather
imprisoned until some time after the war ended--when he would be able to return
to his beloved Antoinette. Three key factors influenced the decision to execute
him. One was that his police record was included in the clemency deliberations,
and it counted against him. Another was that desertion had become a problem for
the U.S. Army in the European theater. General Eisenhower and other commanders
felt something had to be done about it. Finally, Slovik's case reached the
point when it had to be reviewed and acted on by Eisenhower's headquarters just
as the U.S. Army was heavily engaged in its bitterest and bloodiest campaign of
the war in Europe--the Battle of the Bulge.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Slovik doesn't deserve that much sympathy. He was a petty criminal, and
he was dumb, and desertion was a problem. Maybe shooting him and not
the others was the problem.